McCaffery: Could the Sixers save their season?

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doug Collins gestures as his team plays against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013, in Philadelphia. The Clippers won 107-90. (AP Photo H. Rumph Jr)

PHILADELPHIA — From the court, from the sidelines, from a monitor with prompting from a TV director, Doug Collins has seen everything there is to see in the NBA.

“I saw a team lose by 40 in the playoffs,” the Sixers’ coach said, “and then come back and win.”

That was his theme the other night after his Sixers were seltzer-bottle-sprayed by the Los Angeles Clippers, 107-90, in a Wells Fargo Center that had emptied early. He went the one-of-those-things route, invoked the hats-off-to-them option, shrugged off the kind of sleepy Sixers performance that he’d seen before and will see again.

“Speed, size, defense,” Collins said, describing the nightly specials on the Clippers’ basketball menu. “They shot the ball. Their defense was tremendous. Their bigs are so active and quick. Traps, pick and rolls, get back ...”

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There was more, all of it savory. This is the Clippers’ time, at last. They are angry, hungry, deep. Just like everyone said, L.A. well could win it all this year.

But as Chris Paul was gliding around, creating plays, and as Blake Griffin was posing in mid-air, and the Clippers dunked, and dunked, and dunked, and as the remaining fans even began to become amused by the whole event, the other reality was roaring down too. That would be that the only way the Sixers can convince their team to think about a championship is to run that replay on the scoreboard one more time, the one of Billy Cunningham and a victory cigar. Or they could shout out that they have the third most of something in NBA history, playoff wins maybe, or something useless like that.

Not that one night and one loss to a better team was that tipping point. It might have been able to sniff that one out at Photo Day, when Andrew Bynum stood to one side of the PCOM Center and warned that he might miss the preseason. But with the All-Star break sore and the trade deadline next, and with Bynum still making about $100,000 an hour to channel Richard Simmons on some space-age treadmill, it was a look-in-the-mirror moment.

They either have to change personnel — again, like they did when they crumpled a second-round playoff team — or they have to concede that they are nothing more than an NBA mid-major.

The topic had arisen, days earlier, after Collins’ defining speech about this being his toughest-ever coaching assignment. And, well, the deadline exists to generate trade talk. But Collins’ answer was telling, and a touch underplayed. For while he didn’t scream for a rebuilt roster, he conceded that if there were something to happen, it should happen only one way.

“If we do anything,” he said, “it has to be to help our future.”

The Sixers have been trading in futures since 1983. In 2010, they had the No. 2 pick in the draft, Evan Turner, and are rumored to be willing to flip him for something fresher. They are low on point guards, absent of bulk, unprepared to prod Bynum into uniform. Can the season be life-guarded?

“All we can do is win the next game,” Turner said. “We’ll be fine. We’ve just got to stay confident, remain focused and keep playing. We do decent on the road. We’ve just got to stick together.”

They just had an eight-game homestand, winning five, but tumbled at the end, seeming to have ignored everything on the scouting report in that 17-point flop. They will play in Milwaukee Wednesday, break for the All-Star carrying-on, hit Minnesota and return to play the Heat Feb. 23. Since that will be two days after the trade deadline, the Sixers could be unrecognizable the next time they surface in the WFC. By then, they could be deeper in the NBA East race — or that much closer to a different future.

“These guys have to know that we’ve got to go to Milwaukee and we have to be ready to play,” Collins said. “Let’s not check out for All-Star week. Let’s go to Milwaukee, and let’s play.”

They could play well. In the NBA, as a coach who has seen everything knows, that can happen too.